Happy Batman day! Wait, wrong Bruce...
Still struggling with the volatility of his alter ego, Bruce Banner must make peace with himself to help stop Thanos from wreaking havoc across the galaxy.
It's a bit of a joke at this point that Marvel movies' stories are found in the editing room, with major moments remaining undecided until often the last minute. Of course, that's just part of a long tradition, since Tony Stark's "I am Iron Man" in 2008 was an on-set RDJ improv, but now it's bordering on Todd Howard's "Bethesda magic" at this point, just blindly trusting that everything will come together fine in the end. That's why, in Infinity War, it was a late call to not have Hulk reemerge in the final battle, instead leaving Bruce in charge. So late, in fact, that "Hulk inside the Hulkbuster" toys were made, but it took until the Infinity Saga line for us to get the human.
The initial Infinity Saga line came out in 2021, and comprised 10 releases covering seven movies. Because stores are back to only wanting to carry anything that has a movie or TV tie-in again, a few years later Hasbro did a second series, adding eight more figures and three more movies. Because "what stores want to buy" and "what the public wants to buy" don't always line up very well, you can still find some of those 2023 figures on pegs today. Others, though, came and went in one shot, so if you missed them, you missed them for good.
We've had an MCU Bruce Banner before, but it was only as part of a four-pack for Hello Mary Lou: Avengers II.
No surprise that this release uses the same suit body as the last one, crooked feet and all. They've had over a decade to fix that, and still haven't. We'll keep picking on them until they do, that's our promise! Unexpectedly, the head is new: they could easily have gotten away with just using the existing one and giving it Photo Real paint, and we'd have been happy with that; but instead, it's an updated mold that's even better than the great work the first one had. Go fig!
The old Bruce was wearing a dark suit and purple shirt, and this one isn't substantially different. Still a dark suit,
but this time the purple shirt is plaid rather than solid - light lavender base with darker lines crossing it, evening out to a middle tone that's honestly more grayish than purplish when you get down to it. This is what he wore in Wakanda, as seen from the first trailer onward. Since he'd previously been wearing hand-me-downs from Dr. Strange (after crashing, shirtless, into his house), we're left to assume the Avengers compound had some of his stuff in storage. Nice of them not to throw it out when they moved headquarters!
His articulation remains unchanged: a balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a hinged chest, swivel waist, balljoint hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. Boy, it sure is too bad there are no shin swivels, isn't it? WIth those we'd be able to point his feet in a human direction instead of whatever mess this is. His suit jackets is PVC, so it will flex aside when you bend the torso.
He gets no accessories, just a pair of open hands and a pair of fists.
You know, if Quicksilver, a new mold, could come with a bunch of also-new Ultron parts, there's no reason rehashed Bruce Banner couldn't come with a Hulkbuster glove. No, he didn't use one in the final film, but the trailer shows a deleted scene of his standing next to one and working on it. While wearing this very shirt!
Infinity War Bruce Banner isn't a must-have Marvel Legend, but it's nice to get him. Especially since he's one of only two figures in the 2023 assortment that hadn't been released some way before (the other being Dark World Thor, who at least had 4" figures). I got the only Bruce I ever saw back then, but I know Walmarts right now that still have Iron Men and Captains America.
-- 09/21/26
Should they have given him a Hulkbuster arm? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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